October 2011 High School Wiretap

Aaron Scales, a 6-foot-9, 250-pound power forward prospect from the American Basketball Institute in Charlotte, N.C., announced he has de-committed from Missouri.

His coach, John Jordan, who made the announcement in an email to several media members, cited the uncertain outcome of the NCAA investigation into allegations of impropriety by Frank Haith while at Miami as the reason for Scales to change his mind.

“Actually, he’s been thinking about it for the last few weeks. It’s just a tough situation,” Jordan said in a phone interview Monday morning. “He really likes Coach Haith. He’d love to play for him, but with these allegations pending, it’s a situation where we just can’t gamble on this kind of situation.”

Willie Cauley has committed to Kentucky as a member of the class of 2012.

Cauley is a 7-foot, 230 pound center generally considered as a top-40 member of his class.

Cauley plays at Olathe (Kan.) Northwest.

“I would say he’s a very, very high-level run and jump athlete,” Rivals.com Eric Bossi said. “And he’s also very fluid from side-to-side. He can get from one end of the floor to the other better (than most big men). His offense needs some work but I wouldn’t say he’s totally raw.

From the time Michael Beasley was 14-years-old, Joel Bell and Curtis Malone conspired a relationship with him in order to secure the rights to represent him professionally, according to a civil suit filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

Beasley asserts that Bell financially backed Malone's DC Assualt team and that in return Malone felt obliged to direct Beasley to Bell for professional representation.

Beasley’s accusations are part of a countersuit against Bell and a third-party claim against Malone filed Sept. 27 in Montgomery County Circuit Court in response to a Jan. 21 breach-of-contract suit filed by Bell Sports Inc. against Beasley. Bell’s original suit claims Beasley wrongfully terminated his representation agreement with Bell Sports Inc. just prior to signing an endorsement deal with Adidas.

Rick Barnes said Myck Kabongo has all the tools to become the next great point guard for a program that has produced standouts such as T.J. Ford and D.J. Augustin.

"He's somewhere in between those two," Barnes said of Kabongo. "He's extremely fast like T.J., but T.J. would pace his game. Myck is a more full throttle. Forget the cruise control. He'd be great this weekend at Talledega. He can beat everyone down the floor with the ball, but he's going to learn to change his pace from time to time so our team can get into a flow."

Kabongo played high school ball for hard-nosed coach Dan Hurley at St. Benedict's Prep.

"He got me ready, mentally," Kabongo said of Hurley. "Some of these [freshmen] have never been at schools where coaches are going to get after them every day. That's what Coach Barnes does. I just let the young guys know, ‘You can't take it personal. It's part of the game. You've got to be coachable. You can't let what he says on the court affect you off the court.'"

Barnes couldn't say enough good things about Kabongo's attitude -- "I've never seen him in a bad mood."

“I don’t remember it because it didn’t happen,” said Sharman White, Miller Grove's head coach. “No one really even knew that the rankings came out. I guess that’s because we weren’t in them. Things are different this year.”

“This year people will definitely see us coming,” said Tony Parker, a senior forward and last year’s ESPNHS National Junior of the Year. “The response has been a lot different this year when the rankings came out.”

The Wolverines will get their chance to climb on Jan. 7 when they face No. 1 Simeon (Chicago) in the Cancer Research Classic.

“Every year is different,” said Parker, who is ranked No. 31 by ESPN. “We haven’t played one game yet and we haven’t been through any adversity yet. It’s just a number to us, and it isn’t even the number we want. We want the one before that. How can we be excited about that?”